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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RainOfSteel" data-source="post: 3292673" data-attributes="member: 24460">And yet, that is exactly the way I have always read the rules.  (For 1e and 2e, anyway.  I abandoned the use of alignments so long ago I never bothered to even read the 3.x versions.)-----------------------------------Alignment Myths<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Interpretation: That everyone is going to look at alignments in the same way.  No one I know of has yet come to any one conclusion about what even the RAW on alignments actually means.  When it is impossible to write a set of rules or even guidelines that the majority will agree on, I feel it is foolish to even attempt to write and include such rules.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lawful vs Chaotic: Law and Chaos may seem relatively easy to separate, but even here, there are problems.  Whose law are we talking about?  Every society has different laws, sometimes radically different.  One society's law may be another's anarchy (i.e. Chaos).  This is a tangled snarl, for sure.  "I'm lawful, but wait, I just broke the law, isn't that an alignment violation?"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Good vs. Evil: Good and Evil are far harder to define.  One man's good (obeying the law) may be another man's evil (free spirit).  Where one man thinks nothing of starving tens of millions of his own people to death to industrialize his nation (Stalin), other's see it as hideous power-mongering opportunism combined with sociopathic disregard for human life.  Many will say, but only a few people act like that, but this ignores that whole legions of people cooperated with Stalin (some may have been at gunpoint, but all of them weren't).  No one is ever going to come to one conclusion on what these things really represent.  Serious disagreements can occur in even small groups.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Straight-Jacket: So many DMs treat alignments as a form of straight-jacket.  Ok, this is from my gaming in the 1e era, but as far as I am concerned, this is the root of my dissatisfaction with the alignment system.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Neutrality: That it really exists in anything above microscopic numbers.  Neutral people are bystanders and observers, those who wish to be left alone and will not take sides, or perhaps referees or judges.  They are not those who seek to interfere in other groups and forces to keep one from triumphing over the others.  I think this is pretty much the definition of nefarious meddling or even traitorous behavior.  Good PC: "What, you helped us defeat the Dark Lord ten year ago, why have you slain the Band of Heroes in their sleep now that the Dark Lord has returned?"  Neutral NPC: "Good cannot be allowed to triumph."  Neutral groups and peoples, per the alignment rules, would be despised by all the other forces.  In Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion books, which are arguably one of the great inspirations of the alignment system as a whole, those characters who served the Cosmic Balance, servants of fate itself, were few and far between, and they acted (or only appeared to act) at great turning points.</li> </ul>IMO, alignments cause far more problems than any benefit they might provide.  Should there be Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, and Balance in the multiverse?  Of course.  Can characters serve these forces?  Of course.  Should characters have an inherent attribute of themselves, in the same way that they have height, weight, and eye color, that specifies what they serve or believe in?  No.  No, I say.When we realize that there have been successive redefinitions of alignments combined with myriad interpretations of the RAW combined with the personal beliefs of DMs and players as applied in play, it becomes clear that it all becomes a swampy morass of uselessness.------------------------All of these problems and issues, and many more, are covered in Dragon magazine article For King and Country, by Paul Suttie, Issue 101. I haven't bothered with alignments since reading this article, and I think they should be removed from the core game and made an optional part of the rules.</blockquote>

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